The Class Dummy Diary

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

AUSTIN, Texas - Rick Perry was in South Carolina calling for tax reform that would greatly help the rich get richer and every other American falling farther and father down on the national economic ladder. Perry, a candidate for the Republican Party's 2012 presidential nomination, took the stage at a Tuesday afternoon news conference to announce his 20% flat tax plan, one he said would balance the American federal budget by 2020.

This Perry fighting desperately to stay in the race is the same Perry who graduated at the bottom of his class at Texas A&M with a D in Economics. This mental failure talking taxes is the equivalent of a minor league baseball manager from the Rio Grande Valley talking about who should and shouldn't get into the Major League Baseball Hall-of-Fame. Laughable.

But Perry is struggling mightily. He is eating the party's frontrunner's dust. Yeah, Mitt Romney's and Herman Cain's. Humiliating.

Yet, there he is doing his damndest to re-energize a stalled train on political rails that just won't help him. This week, he also came out as a "birther," as someone who does not believe President Barack Obama is an American. Perry not only asked to see the president's birth certificate, but also said he wanted to see Obama's college grades. It's a no-brainer to say that the president's achievements at Harvard likely further-pale Perry's slacker achievements at AggieLand.

Perry's tax plan would largely gut the federal Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and greatly reduce the country's revenues. He also wants to reduce the Department of Education by half its staff and scope, something he told his South Carolina audience he is familiar with because he did it in Texas. This, also, at a time when Texans are screaming for better state agencies and employers following suit for better-educated job applicants.

It'll be interesting to see how Perry, no great communicator, will push his tax plan on the campaign trail. His details are, as he put it, forthcoming, so who knows what he has in mind? Perry has made a career out of getting big breaks, beginning with then-Texas Governor George W. Bush's ascent to the White House in 2000, when, as Lt. Governor, Perry assumed the position. He has done well for himself.

But it's the Peter Principle every week for this guy. He has risen to his level of incompetence. Well, to be factual, it happened a few years back...

- 30 -

The New America...

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

AUSTIN, Texas - It is no longer hard to even imagine it: The U.S. can now throw images of both a First World and a Third World country at you. Right here, anywhere in this once-great land. Take your pick. Drive into this progressive city to join the Occupy Austin people camped outside City Hall downtown and get a glimpse of ambulatory poverty in America. They look like winos, like characters from the grubby Bukowski novel Barfly, hundreds of them panhandling for their supper on just about every busy intersection.

Some look gone, aged and used. It is the others, the younger ones, that throw an industrial wrench full-blast into your brain, to that part that says no, this cannot be happening in the greatest country in the world. That scene is for Egypt, for Bangladesh, for Mexico.

But there they are, part of a growing population of Americans unable to feed, clothe or house themselves. They used to be called the "homeless," only these people are even more abandoned and dispossessed than that lovely little word could ever convey. Scraggly-haired women in their late-40s and 50s, bearing signs that say "Any change is okay" do battle with haggard men after the same coins. They all wear the faces of old and lingering pain, of visible starvation, of some sort of walking death.

And it's not just Austin. Similar scenes can be found in most of the nation's urban centers. In the rural towns, such as those to be found around Austin, the scenes are not as prominent, but, perhaps, is due to the fact that more people in the city avails a greater opportunity for begging.

Begging. Begging in America?

That used to be the face of a host of other foreign lands. Begging, as in please give me something, anything. That is the New America. People without jobs, without hope, without homes.

In a report prepared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), approximately 15 percent of U.S. households in 2009 had difficulty feeding one or more members of their households at some point due to a lack of financial resources. That equates to 17.4 million households total, or roughly 45 million people.

It is an astonishing indictment on this thing we used to know as the American Dream. Some land of opportunity. Some greatest country in the world. Some noble experiment. Some fall from grace.

The heartless hourglass moves its sand. Time has a nasty habit of worsening the hunger, the idea that trying one more thing to better yourself is to be desired. Life has lost its shine for these people. They find no comfort or charm in living in their vehicles. At schools from coast to coast, more and more children are arriving hungry. It is no longer just the traditional poor, or the oppressed, so-called minorities. The entire national mural is ragged and in need of attention.

Third World? Well, hell-o...

- 30 -

The Farm & Ranch Report

By JUNIOR BONNER
The Paz Files

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - It don't get no better'n this. No, sir. Earthquake south of San Antone today, and that killin' of that Libyan dictator, Moammar Khadaffy. What's next? Jeez, it could be dang near anything, huh? News is crazy, is what I say. Strange things break and there we go, chasing after info like it really means serious crap, you know. Whatever. It keeps me entertained. Yeah, where's Freddy Fender when we need him. Sing it, son. Lay it on me, now.

Khadaffy Killed

It happened sometime early Thursday afternoon. Reports had it that the noisy Libyan strongman was captured in some pig dung-filled hellhole by a gang of rebels who'd been lookin' for him for weeks. They found him and he sort of stood up to fight, when someone fired and the next thing you know Khadaffy, like our economy, was gone. How do you say 'Adios, Mofo' in his language? One less villain on the world stage. What is the U.S. going to do when all the villains are gone? Guess we'll be the next world villains.

Herman Cain

What an idiot! This guy wants to build a 20-foot fence the length of the U.S. - Mexico border and electrify the damned thing. Leave it to the son of sons of sons of former slaves to get uppity, and thinks he's above the fray. Why, this Afro-American must think he be White, as they say in Rap music. Herman Cain is still in the running for the crazy Republican Party's 2012 presidential nomination, but, if you ask me, a True American, Cain is one sick puppy in need of a colon wash. He can wear those shiny, expensive suits and make Republicans laugh at the abandoned and the poor, but he's no one to lead me anywhere. Herman Cain? Shine my boots, boy!

Rick Perry

There was a time when Rick Perry rode the crest of that Republican wave for the presidency. Today, his campaign languishes like some beached, half-dead sea turtle. So long, Rick. They rode you hard and will now put you away wet. That's your party, son. Don't need yore ass anymore, lad. Say hell-o to I-35 on your way back home. You came in sixth in the latest Iowa poll. Sixth? And that's the first primary ahead of the nomination early next year! Sixth! What a bozo. Couldn't wear the suit and make it fit the national stage. That fajita face never did square with that hair. A grown man looking definitely Gay. Miss Anita, take him back to the ranch, willya? He ain't ready for no prime time. Dust in his rural brain, see. I coulda told you that a long time ago. Lotta people coulda. You lissen, now. It's as they say in herding, pull'em on home iffa they don't wanna come.

Valley Politics

They're coming out of the woodwork in Harlingen. Do'ers and Ne'r-do-wells asking to be voted onto this and that city council. Some of the best roaches have hit the streets in Harlingen, where aspirants to the District 1 seat now number - what? - six or seven? It's Castillo scampering down the sidelines to chase down crazy-legs Gail Moore, only to be piled-on by some unsung benchwarmer named Gonzalez. Throw the flag. These are just three more used cars off that dusty lot wanting to race. Somebody roust the young and send them long. Surely, young legs will overtake this tired trio. Castillo is the mysterious anti-Catholic, Moore is the carpetbagger, so what is J.J. Gonzalez - the dreamer? He's been a city commissioner before! And, from what we can tell, he did nothing anywhere near spectacular. Don't see no statue of this stiff in front of City Hall, do we? Boy, Howdy. Where have you gone, Larry James? Need a weather report on all this. Tell me the clouds'll roll on down the road.

McAllen Mayor

Richard F. Cortez knows about border fences. In today's NY Times, the usually-staid mayor is quoted as saying this about Herman Cain's wild-hair proposal calling for a fence all along the southern border, a metal barrier capable of electrocuting people: "It is a winding river. Where in the world are you going to put fencing? To propose that suggests ignorance of the border and the terrain." You got something there, Cortez. Cabeza De Vaca couldn't a-said it better.

Blogs

Lately, muh drinking buddy Dr. G.F. McHale-Scully ain't been writin' crap on his Bollywood blog, BrowntownNews.com, and the women at Taqueria La Buena in Brownsville have been askin' what the Hell's with that? Well, really, Keemo Sabe. I have no idea what the good doctor may be up to, or not up to. He's a purist, a man who tends to listen only to the accordioned songs on his Made-in-Mexico Ipod. So, that'll have to remain a mystery, not that there are not a thousand others in his vulgar hometown. Why, the last time I was there, I heard a heavyset drunk at the end of the bar where I was hangin' say that he ain't heard one word from his wife in six years. Six years! That, sodbusters, is the luckiest man in town, if you ask me. I get more grief from my horse, Leafy, on a gosh-darned daily basis...

- 30 -

The Pitiful & The Damned

"Well, I had to move fast, but I couldn't with you around my neck. I'd said I'd send for you, and I did. What did you expect?"... - Bob Dylan

By RON MEXICO
The Paz Files

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Yeah, Baby, has anybody seen my love? Hit me, son. Absolutely, make it a double. I'm on assignment and professionals know how to tone-up the best senses with just the right amount of booze. What's that? Sure, I'll spring for a drink for that sweetheart. Anything for love, is what I say this late at night. She said what? Ha ha ha. I'm on it, son. You tell her Ron's there, all-in...

And so it went that recent night in this latest border den of unrestrained romance. There are sounds all over this town, some even chasing a neat tune. Love it! The air is full of excitement, goes the line at the downtown chamber of commerce, where dreams of resurrecting the falling inner city have circled like hungry buzzards for the last few years. Anything for love, yeah.

They want desperately to make this dusty, under-achieving burg into another Babylon, a place where men will again be men and women will again be for men, not like it's been since that drug war broke out across the Rio Grande in Mexico and took local dicks with it. Yeah, lads, men here are scared as hell to come out at night. And the sissies won't even cut a line across to Matamoros for a little strange, which, bless their hearts, was the national sport here for - what? - a hundred years? Get stoned in Brownsville and get laid in Matamoros. That was the town's party slogan for many, many years. I swear I once saw that written in a men's room at Hobby Airport in Houston.

But things went bloody and then limp when the drug cartels set up shop. Brownsville men were cut off! Left to play with themselves, is what my local source, Dr. G.F. McHale-Scully, told me in a 10-page telegram I got before coming to work this story.

"Bring your best goddamned boots," he went on after telling me that my old squeeze was now a city commissioner in town. No names. I'm not that kind of angel. McHale-Scully is the sort of journalist who chases the all-night brawl. He said, "You either get what Brownsville offers or you get nothing, and those offerings are a far cry from lovelies you used to take to the Ritz Hotel in Mata. Be advised. Times changed while you were messing with the Scandinavians in Amsterdam."

I'm hip.

Yet, I couldn't help but catch the loosest string of this new adventure in Brownsville. Clubs are opening in town and the bored bulls are clarioning the arrival of a new party era. I hear the tunes. They're rocking numbers. It's loud enough to drown out the machine gun fire coming from across the river, where the Mexicans play at hungry-for-power.

Man, I don't know. I don't know. It could all be a mirage. It's happened too many times along the border. Dreams surface and are presented as if the absolute can't-miss Next Big Thing...and then they do miss. Lord knows that many a resident has gone on to hard drugs just because of the disappointment. You can't dance the same song over and over and over and not get tired of the damned thing, even if you're hob-nobbing with a big-bosomed woman who just can't stop laughing. I love that in women. Laugh, honey. Laugh all freakin' night. Ronnie's here, love.

I leave the bar after dropping a $30 bill in the bartender's tip jar.

It's a fake bill I worked-up on my computer and printed before I came to Brownsville.

I mean, hey, we're faking our way through a fake story angle, so...

- 30 -

Why White People Laugh

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

AUSTIN, Texas - Nobody is smiling in Dallas these days. Same for Chicago and Mobile, Alabama. A Black man is on the political prowl and both Black and White Americans are nervous. Herman Cain is the man's name and he's riding high in - egads! - the Republican Party's presidential polls. In fact, he hung atop a slew of national polls over the past weekend, there ahead of former frontrunner Willard "Mitt" Romney and James Richard "Rick" Perry.

What a ride it's been for the former president of Godfather Pizza, a man with zero political experience and with no desire to act like one.

Well, that's the myth.

Cain has been stir-crazy during the last week, telling people in the South that, if elected president, he will not only build a 20-foot-tall fence along the entire southern border, but that he will electrify it, as well. He followed that by telling David Gregory of Meet The Press that he was joking when he said it. Trouble is Cain wrote a book a few years back in which he talked about widening the Rio Grande into a huge moat and stocking it with alligators, adding that anyone able to swim the moat and escape the gators would, well, get a job in the U.S.!

Oh, if only African-American comedian Dick Gregory could hear this. Gregory loved a good Black story, but he had a way with dressing-down uppity Black folk. Cain was in Washington, D.C. to appear on the Sunday TV talk show, a day President Obama spent at the new Martin Luther King Memorial on the Washington Mall. Cain did not bother. Gregory would have chewed him up and then spit him out. Richard Pryor? Pryor would have gone after Cain fist-first.

Cain is not Black; he is a Republican.

It is a phenomenon among some Black and some Brown Americans. They would rather play the GOP doormats than even begin to believe that the only freakin' party for them is the Democratic Party. Cain is old enough to have been alive during the Civil Rights Movement, but he feigns even ever hearing about it. He was a big cheese with his piza outfit, and he would like all of us to know that he was no one's slave and that he never lived in the ghetto and that he never even like The Temptations or Diana Ross and The Supremes.

Cain wasn't that kind of Black.

Well, he did sing. Once. That's him in the photo atop this story, in jazzy white robes while singing a take-off of John Lennon's classic, Imagine. Cain has no idea. He mouths his stupid lyrics as if some cheap-road cult leader, seemingly believing that it's funny to throw out this absurdity: "Imagine there's no pizza..."

He is a joke.

And the only saving grace here is that he is kissing Republican you-know-what like some southern bootblack eager to shine Massa's boots ahead of a whupping in the plantation woodshed where the lashings quickly ripped black skin apart, especially skin off the back of a Negroe who didn't know his place. Their documented words, not mine.

But, then, Cain likely believes such things never happened...

- 30 -

Tales Of Degradation...

"Happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest..." - R.G. Ingersoll

By JUNIOR BONNER
The Paz Files

COMBES, Texas - Lately, a lot of people say they see me in town, at their local coffee shops and in this or that bar. Not so. They're all faaaaaaaaaaaaags! I do get out, of course. But any photos taken by aspiring, looking-for-the-legend photogs are certainly not of yours truly. You'll see Junior Bonner here and nowhere else. At least for now.

Last night I was thinking it's strolling time again. I could see Cylantra pacing the floor.

She likes to get out and hear the noise of the night. Something about surviving the music of revolution in her native country south of Mexico. They say that about gunfire, your know. You can never lose the sound of death, absolutely. Like the other day, I ran over a cat without even knowing it. I was just a-movin' up the dusty, unpaved, country road that takes me from my doublewide mobile home here to US 77, the highway I cruise into boring Harlingen.

Anyway, the cat somehow sped across the road and the next thing I know I hear these awful, haunting guttural sounds under my El Camino. I thought I'd hit a landmine that was thinking about exploding and sending me to Kingdom Come. But I rolled a few yards onward and then stopped. When I got out of my two-tone vehicle, I looked back and saw a bloody pulp about the size of a basketball some 20 yards back behind me. I still can't get over the scene, and that sound of death still blows me away. I'm sure you've had similar experiences, especially you women with abusive husbands. A blow upside the head ruins you forever, is what they say.

In any case, I'm headed into Brownsville this morning for some barbacoa tacos at some joint whose name I forget. But I got a map to the joint from my border journalism colleague Dr. G.F. McHale-Scully, the emerging balladeer known for his Martina McBride covers, and he tells me this one place serves the only killer barbacoa tacos in the entire Rio Grande Valley. Cylantra ain't going with me. She drank herself silly last night, downing a crazy-shaped bottle of Chianti I'd bought her for - what? - $9 at that discount liquor store downtown. Cylantra loves her booze. It makes her frisky, so I don't mind it one bit. I sorta assume the Billy The Kid pose with her after dark, and maybe because I sorta educated her on The Kid's lovin' ways, well, she fawns over me until I pat her on the head and she goes on down, if you get muh drift. Yeah, we have some photos of that, but they'll stay personal.

Brownsville hangs on me for a few days after I visit that hellhole. You know, if it wasn't for all those sick and physically-eccentric characters in town, and I don't speak only about the politicians, Brownsville would be Harlingen. I'd bet that if you paired up the citizens of both towns and had them duke it out that Brownsville's citizens would kick ass. Harlingen is the Valley capital of wimps. As they say about Harlingenites in our bars, "Son de San Luis!"

So, barbacoa it'll be on this lovely Sunday mornin'. I've got Johnny Cash tunes comin' of my dashboard CD player, which was a bitch to install 'cause my El Camino didn't come with one. Here, let me singalong a bit: "...I said, 'My name is Sue, how do you do!!! Now you gonna die!!!' " Love that song. I'm sure all Valley Chicanoes can relate to the lyrics. Ha ha ha.

As I once said to my three illegitimate sons (all by different women) in Western Colorado, don't take what others say about you seriously. People will talk, and they will try to be part of your world, 'cause their world must suck Big Time. I'm used to getting yelled-at by strangers from across the street. Critics are a peso a dozen in in the RGV.

They just can't let Junior Bonner walk by...

- 30 -

On Writing...

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

AUSTIN, Texas - Last week, I started teaching a writing class at a local library. The class is about writing the short story, about creating a story's plot, setting, point-of-view, rising action, climax, falling action and ultimate resolution. I enjoy it.

At present, I have five students, three adults and two young ladies - one a seventh-grader and the other a bright nine-year-old. We run through the basic elements of the story and then we write a short story in the second-half of the one-hour class. The students seem to enjoy the discussions, the give & take we chase after a student reads his or her story, when we question the writer about certain aspects of the story.

During last night's class, one of the older students read her story about failed romance and how sometimes the deterioration of a relationship can be simply described in the precision of a story's title. "Freedom Walks," was the student's title. In roughly 500 words, she managed to tell a story of ambivalence, of abandonment, of disconnection, of romantic give-up, finalized by the story's female character's decision to pack her bags and leave the marriage.

Questions from the other students followed, my nine-year-old asking the writer how she'd come up with the story and what exactly had precipitated the break-up. Short stories don't always give you the A-to-Z of an entire story. In fact, short stories began where longer stories usually near conclusion. The student writer offered her explanation and we went on.

Another student wrote about the hanging of a man who'd stolen potato pancakes. Not, not from an IHOP table, but from poor people during another time in famined Ireland. It told about the chase for the burglar and of his capture and of his hanging. It was another time, when such things happened. Anyway, the story had the added irony. It seems the sheriff in the crowd had been disgusted with the hanging, so he turned in his badge and left the small community. The title of this student's story was "Death in a Small Town," which went both to the hanging of the miscreant and to the symbolism of the sheriff's action. Something else had died in the town.

I generally enjoy talking about writing with anyone, whether a professional writer or with someone who may simply be interested in this or that aspect of the craft. My class meets for an hour on Tuesdays and Fridays, from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. I allow for drinks and snacks, mainly because that's what I have on my desk at home when working on my stories. It's my comfort food, in other words.

The class will run through mid-December, at which time perhaps we will gather the best 20 or 30 stories and hope to get them published in a collection. It's all part of my life's rolling writing lab, my way of staying fresh in the face of, well, too much writing.

Yes, this blog is part of that journey, too...

- 30 -

The Political Business

"In the first place making an announcement in MyHarlingenNews was a major mistake. In fact, it is like a kiss of death. If you were influenced by Juan Ortega, believe me, he is a loser. In fact, Tony Chapa, who operates that blog, cannot even vote. Is this who you want supporting you?"... - Blogger Jerry Deal, in an Eail to Philip Sotelo

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

HARLINGEN, Texas - Who knows about this greenhorn Philip Sotelo? He may be a good and honorable man ready to serve the community, or he may be just another Mexican looking for some publicity to shine over a vacuous, lackluster life. At present, he is an unknown entity, of which there are, well, too damned many in the under-achieving Rio Grande Valley.

As always, we'll say again that the Book of the Border is full of promise. Sadly, however, that promise rarely finds altitude and almost never does a damned thing for the region's all-around needy people.

Perhaps that is why that whenever a new face arrives on the scene, the first inclination is to ask questions in the most direct manner possible. It's a little late in the evolutionary process of this horrible shank of land to grant anyone a free ride from the outset. Questions must be asked, absolutely. Who are you, and what the Hell do you want?

Mssr. Sotelo, said to be an employee of one of those annoying telephone call centers, seeks to replace lately-whipped, but still popular City Commissioner Jerry Prepejchal as the next representative of District 4. Fine and dandy. It's what we do in this country, either we do our civic duty and go for it or we let some other bozo do it. Sotelo appears primed for a run. His seriousness in doing it, however, is the mystery.

Blogger Jerry Deal, editor of MyLeaderNews.com, wants answers. He questions Sotelo's motives and is hard on the rookie for daring to make his announcement on the worst possible blog he could have selected. Deal is right, of course. Sotelo's initial decision has quickly branded his style suspect. Does he not know of that pedestrian website's penchant for being hateful and racist? Does he not care?

Thankfully, there is still much time left before the contest gets to the eventual finish line. And, yes, Mr. Sotelo made his points in responding to a quirky Email sent his way by Jerry Deal. The local blogger's motivation was dead-on as a Journalism stab, but it failed miserably in conveying the importance, mainly because Deal used the missive to unnecessarily diss his blogging opposition.

A list of pointed questions, prefaced by a calm, intelligent introduction, would have done the job a bit better. Deal had the man's Email address and it is getting answers to pertinent questions that should have been his goal. Sotelo is a novice, perhaps unsophisticated in the way of the press. But he, too, is a human being and human beings normally dislike and distrust impromptu interrogations from unknowns that come armed with seeming anger. Deal's Email fit that description, yes.

So, we wish Philip Sotelo the best in his coming efforts and hope that he finds the better path to accomplish his mission. He's not the first Valley would-be politician to do things differently. Ego flashes hot & heavy in the RGV. Elected officials feel they have gained some higher social standing just because the people entrust them with a government job. Most of them, the record shows, fail and fail quickly. One of the main reasons for this is that they invariably find that serving the public conflicts with their ability to serve themselves. It is the anvil shouldered by too many Hispanic elected officials currently allegedly serving the Valley. If it's not booze, its someone else's wife or husband. The story always has a bad and sad ending.

Jerry Deal will recover from this misstep and keep on trucking. He's done it enough to now know the drill.

As for candidate Philip Sotelo, well, we'll have to see and learn more about this fellow before we pass final judgment. So far, there is nothing to indicate he's something new...

- 30 -

Wooing The Racist Vote

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
The Paz Files

AUSTIN, Texas - As if he didn't have enough headaches, Rick Perry is now facing harsher criticism for his support of proposed state license plates honoring those who fought for the Confederacy following the South's secession from the union during the American Civil War.

The issuing of such plates for Texas motorists is still under review, but opposition in the capital city has been hot and heavy. The NAACP and a host of other groups arrived today to tell state Department of Motor Vehicles officials the Confederacy stood for hate and slavery. Proponents of the tags say they merely wish to honor their heritage.

For Perry, who is mired in his bid for the Republican Party's 2012 presidential nomination, the license plates dust-up could not come at a worse time. Already, he is battling the perception that he is supporting the idea that Mormonism is a cult and that he is not being shy about it. The resulting fallout, say pundits, is that Perry's campaign sails onward solely for the extremist Far Right wing of his party. What it will mean in the long run is anybody's guess, but Perry has been dropping steadily in national polls since a beginning that had him arriving as the answer to the party's political woes. As improbable as it would have sounded a pair of weeks ago, longshot candidate Herman Cain is now ahead of Perry.

A weak performance in last night's debate on the campus of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire did not help his cause. He seemed lost and uninterested in engaging his opponents. Where only a few weeks ago Perry played the darling of the GOP, he is now seen as Bachmann II - a crushing assessment in light of the fact that Michele Bachmann is running well-back in the pack of lightweight candidates.

Perry, it is being said, may be home by Christmas...

- 30 -

The Prepejchal Diary...

By JUNIOR BONNER
The Paz Files

HARLINGEN, Texas - Jerry Prepejchal had had enough. Things were rowdy inside City Hall and about to go crazy. He sat there, listening to the battle between the pro-annexation crowd and those who wanted to de-annex a poor section of the city's west side. Harlingen was at a loss to provide needed basic city services and Prepejchal was on the side of those wishing to rid the city of the responsibility. He inhaled and then let blathering colleague Kori Marra have it.

In the annals of this city's politics, it will stand as a seminal moment. Prepejchal had called Mara a bitch, or so she now claims.

"He called me a drunk, an ignorant drunk," Ms. Marra told the local newspaper. "I'm not drunk. I was not drinking before this meeting."

Drink she has in the past. Tales abound. It is something of a badge for Commissioner Marra, a rare, excitable and very vocal woman in the usually subservient Rio Grande Valley, where everyone knows it is the male politicians who are quick to go to blows, some quicker to forward erotic photos of male genitalia to a rival. Nothing humiliates a Mexican male more than being sent a photo of a man's erect cock via his cellphone. I heard that in Browntown the other day, so...

The once-passive Prepejchal has backed off the charge. He denies calling Marra a bitch, although he acknowledges that the meeting went south pretty fast. Now, he is facing a challenge for his seat on the commission in the form of political rookie Philip Sotelo, no relation to Dwight David Eisenhower. The city is abuzz. There is excitement again. You can cut it with a dull machete.

Will Harlingen City Hall become the local hot-as-Hell reality show, its shenanigans featured on the blogs and in the pages of the Valley Morning Star? Bitch, he called her! Bitch!

Man, oh, man. You call a woman a bitch and you're saying a helluva lot to her. Say it in a public setting and, well, you may as well be ripping the underwear off all the women in town. Prepejchal is lucky he lives in a sleepy town where women do not as yet have the bully pulpit. Anywhere else and he'd have been tarred and feathered before being strung head down from the nearest goddamned tree. Did Lon C. Hill, the so-called founder of this bordertown, ever call a woman a bitch? Did former newscaster Frank Sullivan ever do it?

It is a game-changer!

WWJSN? What Will Jerry Say Next?

Apparently, the neophyte Sotelo is no Herman Cain, or he'd have jumped all over Prepejchal. Jumped him like flies on day-old guacamole. But Sotelo may not have the guns or balls to take on the suddenly-brash Prepejchal. What will Prep call Sotelo, a cripple? Politics is not for the faint-of-heart. You have to be willing to go to the mat for your job. Prepejchal may have more fire left in him than Sotelo will ever see. But what about the other city commissioners? Did they hear the heated, barnyard Prep-Marra exchange and are still okay with it? The mayor heard it. He says he did. What was his reaction? How do these people sleep at night?

Jeepers, creepers, folks. Even the cussing cabbies are stunned.

It's a new day in town. Gutter lingo is in. Bashing is okay. Bring your harshest words to the fray and let them fly. Fuck it, there's nothing else left to do in this starving town of some 70,000 dispossessed denizens.

And they say my hometown of Combes is a cesspool.

The only bitch we know out here is that drive into this falling town, especially in the rain, when we have to navigate the city streets alongside those chunky, fajita-faced morons looking for the same shitty bars...

Bitch, he said...

- 30 -

Little Town Blues...

"But, for this immediate area and also often beyond, we know that no one can touch us. This is without a doubt the only online publication that brings news (unbiased) and views (well, our opinions) of things about the Harlingen area and other Cameron County areas..." - Egocentric blogger Jerry Deal

By RON MEXICO
The Paz Files

HARLINGEN, Texas - I was killing a glass of wine when the call came in. It was some happy-voice cardinal at The Vatican wanting to get some information from me for The Pope. "He reads your stories on The Paz Files all the time," said Cardinal Claudio Cardinale. "The Paz Files is a must-read for us all, especially before the Sunday mass."

Then came a note from Laura Bush up in Dallas. She wanted to tell me she had a crush on Junior Bonner, this site's wild and crazy cowboy writer. "Junior turns me on," the former First Lady said. "I bet he smells like cookies. Hmmmmmm. You bet he's sexy, that old coot."

I wasn't going to write a damned thing today, but something about local blogger Jerry Deal's latest story hit me wrong. What's he up to anyway? He really believes his site is now an All-World website? Ha! If only! Deal's MyLeaderNews.com is only one of - what? - two billion websites available on the Internet? And he claims to be Number One in all of South Texas and "beyond," is that it?

Spare me the quaffing of that entire bottle of Maalox, Deal. That site is more like the Most Boring south of Alice, Texas.

It's always been my feeling that if you just have to say that you're Number One, well, you aren't. Praise is earned and is generally more believable when it comes from someone else. You have to say it yourself and you paint yourself as a rank amateur. That Deal, he's delusional. Who writes one or two sentences and calls it a story? His site is more a bulletin board, because the more sentient info comes from his bloggers, not his stories.

You'd think a real journalist would see that for himself.

But, no, he's Number One. Really? Let's see, an estimated guess here says that a good million-plus other blogs get more visitor traffic than Deal's site. And we're being generous. As for Number One anywhere, well, we'll grant him the Top Spot in town. Not much competition there, because, yeah, someone's gotta be Number One in Podunksville.

Anyway, I just got a text message from Oprah Winfrey saying she wants me on her show to talk about the drug cartel games along the Mexican border. Chubby Ed Schultz of MSNBC wants my opinion on "Occupy Rio Hondo" and Brian Williams of NBC says he'll spot me a cup of coffee in his office at 30 Rock just to shoot the breeze. Oh, and I just Emailed David Letterman that I can't make his show on Friday cause I'm partying in Brownsville with some Real Housewives of Cameron County. Angela Merkle, the leader of Germany, asked to be my friend on Facebook, as did the Rev. Al Sharpton, the singer Maria Muldaur, former Brit Prime Minister Tony Blair and tennis star Maria Sharapova.

But I've gotta chase the news. That's what makes me a reporter. I can't just wait on rumors and innuendo, like Easy Jerry Deal. I've gotta get the scoop, the dirt and the skinny on things such as that recent delinquency involving the semi-pro Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings baseball club Deal so loves and the City of Harlingen. Oh, and I've gotta spell out the facts behind that recent annexation brouhaha. Yep. I'll do all that for my readers before I go around bragging that I'm number one.

Hell, I am Number One...

- 30 -

Paint It Bleak...

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

HARLINGEN, Texas - They say much can be said about a community by the manner in which it practices its neighborhood politics. They say that in Smalltown, USA, every time an issue so small that it takes a microscope to find it makes mush out of local brains.

Such is the case in the recent dust-up at City Hall here between factions seeking to annex or de-annex a small piece of the city's West Side. You'd have thought someone had proposed changing the city's name, or posited the idea that a few local banks needed to be charged and burned to the ground. Not even close.

But there was Harlingen appearing in the form of elected officials at City Hall, some throwing fire & brimstone into the night winds, practically screaming against the idea of losing the acreage in question, lands everyone agrees are not on the so-called better side of town. Equally vocal were the proponents of the idea that this land, poor as Hell worst alleys, but valued just the same, should remain under the city's banner, lack of basic services and all.

It was a community embarrassment of the first order, one that not only made cheap hamburger meat out of the affected residents, but brought out the worst in human beings. If it's true that City Commissioner Kori Marra used the "F" word when addressing older colleague Jerry Prepejchal, then she should resign posthaste. Such barnyard lingo is better suited for the midnight hour at a local bar, at about closing time when the last-second hunt for a horizontal treat requires such words. Ms. Marra is being roasted in town, and it's not the first time. Too bad. Those, too, are dots to be filled-in on that childishly-sad drawing that is today's struggling Harlingen.

The issue is one corporate cities have grappled with since the advent of modern cities. How and when do we annex areas, so that we can grow and prosper, so that the community of haves and have-nots can work toward something better? Here, all of last week, annexation was treated as if fornication. A few wanted it badly; a few did not with just as much vigor. Happens all the time. But they're rarely as contentious as the issue was here in recent weeks. Longtime friendships were torn apart and cut-throat betrayals ruled. It was Harlingen gone wild. But, then, that's what comes of hizzy fits thrown by amateurs, by the ignorant and by the close-minded.

We asked City Commissioner Robert Leftwich a few questions via Email. He did not respond to them individually, but did write this in his reply: "What makes this really bad about this deal is that the recommended fire station that the city did intend to build years back was built to support Marra's Treasure Hills area (Glasscock 2009). As you can tell, the west side is at great risk. By their resistance, it appears the Old Guard could care less."

Leftwich refers to Commissioner Marra, a strong defender of the annexation - with or without police and fire protection. Leftwich opted to de-annex, saying the city's failure to provide basic services left it vulnerable to a lawsuit. The "Old Guard" is that group of locals who in the past decided things for everybody, generally in their overwhelming favor, however.

Leftwich went on: "Between you and me, though state law is just as demanding on providing police and fire services, I erred in my presentation by using the general law section and not the home ruled. I plan on correcting the presentation later."

By all accounts, Leftwich's presentation at the City Commission meeting was a careful defense of the de-annexation posture he and Commissioners Prepejchal and Gus Ruiz took that night, this despite hooting and hollering that lowered the discourse practically to a domestic brawl between an educated husband and an uneducated wife. Life is that way in the Rio Grande Valley, although no one worries too much about it.

Elsewhere in the land, major issues moved the government and the business world. Political candidates seeking the Republican Party's 2012 presidential nomination kept up their relentless attack on Democratic President Barack Obama. In the streets of most major cities, protesters gathered in numbers that grew by the minute to damn the nation's corporate greed culture and its resulting stomp of the Everyman's voice.

Here, in dwarfish Harlingen, the fallout was both laughable and, again, yet another spectacular display of what can only labeled as being immature brains. Selfish remains the region's most popular adjective.

Asked about his future in city government, Commissioner Leftwich said this: "Still two years on my term, so I'm too far out to decide on a fourth term."

It makes you wonder why he would even bother...

- 30 -

The American Dream

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

AUSTIN, Texas - At what point do citizens engage their own country? Is now the time? Here, as we get ready for the World Series of Baseball, as we settle in for the long year ahead of the obscene 2012 presidential election, here we are, pondering our next move. Already, the noise coming out of New York and Washington, D.C. and San Francisco and Los Angeles speaks of revolution.

Are we up to risking what little we have?

Do we dare go the way of the brave Egyptians and the Libyans and the rest of the Arab Spring rebellions? Americans aren't so gullible as to think that any sort of charge against anything or anybody will sell from sea to shining sea. But we'll see. This could be one of those moments in time, a time when too many rise to say, "Enough is enough."

They call it "Occupy Wall Street." It is a demonstration, we are told, being mounted to scream the idea that corporations have too much influence over our political system. Read banks and Wall Street into that evil influence.

"Corporatism has become the standard, and people forget they’re part of government," one young man from Maryland told a TV reporter yesterday afternoon. "It's power that’s come for sale. Our government has allowed policy, laws and justice to be for sale to the highest bidder."

It is, of course, an obvious conclusion. What this young man is saying has been the case for the better part of the last quarter-century. Big money has crafted our economy and it has bought pretty much every politician of note. You rise with money in your pocket, is what they say in politics. It has never been so true.

This upcoming presidential election will cost in excess of $1 billion. Perhaps it will save the major television networks and some newspapers. It should be the best year in media advertising in decades. That's big money buying major influence.

What's especially intriguing about this current unrest is that it seems to have found legs as word moves across the country. These protesters are targeting well-known exterprises, such as Bank of America and Wells Fargo and Chase. They see these businesses as being a major part of the social problems that have been laid at the doorstep of all Americans. They see greed running amok.

It isn't the first of its kind. Back in 1967, a smaller band of protesters pulled a similar stunt in the same general location (see photo atop this story). They issued the same complaints and went about walking with with placards that damned Wall Street. It, however, was short-lived, as these things tend to be when authority is challenged.

But it should be challenged, and Americans ought to go public with every bit of protest from the local level to the national stage whenever someone tries to buffalo the balance. It is that balance, that sharing of the nation's wealth, or the opportunity to at least imagine sharing, that is at stake here. Something's askew when 4% of the population has more than 50% of the country's wealth. In our capitalistic society, the word is that anyone can birth a dream and become a millionaire.

Who knows? Maybe these protesters have come to realize that the American Dream died sometime back and it's now time to recognize and accept it. Something has to die so that something new can begin, is what I say when the dust won't settle. That's what drove Hosni Mubarak and Moammar Khadafy out of their palaces, this notion that a Human Being will take it, but he will only take it for so long.

Today, when you overhear someone talking about these protests, lift a voice and say something in support. The status quo does not serve the collective. The status quo serves only a few. A recent report said that some 33% of our military servicemen did not believe we should have been in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Decisions were made and the treasury was gutted. Another said the number of American corporations paying their share of taxes was the lowest ever. These are the corporations that won't pay a livable wage, that ship their jobs overseas, companies such as American Express and Nike, among others. It is a wicked and cruel time for all Americans.

Politicians have circled their wagons and are taking care of themselves.

It is the people who are in the streets, and there is no question that it is time...

- 30 -

Worst People In The World

"I am anti-Winter Texan and proud of it. We have our own cartoons right here in town..." - A Harlingen resident

By JUNIOR BONNER
The Paz Files

HARLINGEN, Texas - I swear I saw one of those mobile homes in tow yesterday, up on N. 77, headed into town. It scared the Holy Valley outta me, and I ain't one to get skirred real easy, if you get muh drift. But these are horrible times in the Rio Grande Valley. Good people are unemployed from A-to-Z, even the healthy. Who will step-up when the bills are due, when the check arrives at the restaurant? Hey, it's looking like another round of the nasty Winter Blues around here.

They say Christmas will be a skimpy affair; one gift per person, and not an expensive one at that. $8 shirt from Mervyn's, that sort of cheap stuff. How has this entire region fallen so low? The churches are to blame, but so are the politicians. Both reek of putrid smells, aromas that come from lies and betrayals. A man can report to his woeful 9-to-5 job and think he's got the world licked, but when he returns home, it's the bouts of worry and depression that consume his nights.

What's the answer, Boys and Girls?

Do you simply let things fall where they may, as is the area's custom. Or will someone rise against the boredom and the poverty and strike out for the spectacular. It hasn't ever happened in the Valley, but short, stubby dreamers abound. They politick for less plastic bags at the grocery store. They annex and de-annex as if morons unable to comprehend the meaning of the word and the responsibility. They elect he same Ol' pudgy Mexicans for mayor and insist that downtown is another French Quarter. Ha! If only!

No, nothing ever helps the local mood. I drink Tequila to stay peacefully disoriented and I hear my neighbor, a well-hipped widow whose husband drowned in the Gulf of Mexico a year ago, has taken to going on long woods along the rural road where we live. Some say she goes out into the wild brush and takes off all her clothes. Talks to the mesquite and the gravel and the birds and the rabbits. I'll ask her about it one of these days, maybe when my girl, Cylantra, Queen of Honduras, leaves me and I'm forced to bed down a lonesome stranger.

Yes, sirree...who knows?

My editor said write a story about what can possibly save Harlingen from a stolen Christmas and I almost couldn't think about anything except that maybe Hellzapoppin' blogger Jerry Deal won't die between now and then. It could happen; he's - what? - almost 80? Jeepers, creepers, we're all aging like lazy buggers.

No, Deal won't mess-up the Christmas Season. He's too much of a go-along guy. I should send him a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, the $200-a-bottle bottle, just to give him a shot at the Good Life before he calls for his last blogger comment. Annex or de-annex, he is asking. How about Live and Let Live! How about Work and Keep Working? How about just Stop Blabbering and Get The Fuck Outta the Way! Deal, my Man, why aren't you so pissed when it relates to the Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings and how they bilk the city? Actors! Posers! Frauds! Charlatans and clowns!

Okay, okay, lighten up, Junior. Drink that black coffee, son.

Who will save Harlingen's Christmas?

Those oft-hated Winter Texans, that's who...

- 30 -

The Electric Slide

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

AUSTIN, Texas - It's getting to where every day brings a new and wilder revelation in the Rick Perry presidential campaign. Today, the 61-year-old Aggie battled a report that had him and his family hunting on property whose main gate flashed the worst of American racial slurs: Niggerhead.

Then word came out that Perry had aided mortgage companies wishing to come to Texas and rip-off Texans, this in exchange for contributions to his pocket. It's been one lousy Country Rick & The Fishcrap episode after another, beginning with his threat to lead the state out of the union, to being proud of killing criminals, to calling the federal social security system a "Ponzi scheme," to bailing on immigration.

So, we ask, what's next?

Here's what's next: Perry will acknowledge that he is Gay.

Or he will admit to being a mule for the Mexican drug cartels.

Or he will break down and say he cheated on his wife, Anita, with the Mexican maid. Or he will be forced to say there is Negro blood in his family.

Let's see, what else pisses-off Republicans?

Oh, okay, Rick Perry will be found to have written vicious anti-Ronald Reagan notes to his pals and, later, anti-George Herbert Walker Bush letters when he was state campaign manager for Democrat Al Gore in the late-1980s.

Or, he will have once told a college buddy that he thought Nancy Reagan looked like a small-tittied, old hag just back from the ranch hands' bunkhouse, back and looking happy...

- 30 -

The Road Less Travelled

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

WIMBERLEY, Texas - Something neat happens to this part of the state when the weather turns cool, especially in the early-morning hours, when the coffee being brewed in Smalltown, USA draws you right in, when it's okay to wish for a thin sweater and when finding yourself in a town such as this one tells you it's okay to get off the beaten path.

Wimberley is maybe 30 miles southwest of Austin and about 15 if you take the San Marcos route off I-35. Weekends are times especially attractive to out-of-towners, as locals roll out the red carpet for the wandering hordes looking to get away from the hustle and flow of the city.

Yesterday was First Saturday in town, a monthly shopper's festival that draws thousands to the little town home to some 15,000 residents there on the lip of the Texas Hill Country. A winding country road leads you in, verdant rolling hills banking on both sides, some dotted by new, all-electric mountain home construction, side-of-the-road attractions and just plain old fencing that dates back to the middle of last century.

We were here most of the morning, moving among the city crowds, waltzing into tourist stores and catching a bite at Ino'z (pronouned "eye nose"). And although we normally dine at my favorite Wimberley Cafe on the square, we again asked for suggestions of several business folk and were told Ino'z was the place to munch.

It's on the square, but you have to take a walk down toward Cypress Creek, wind a bit to the main entrance and then angle in toward a table, or make toward the bar. The view of the creek, with its craggy 100-year-old trees and its walkabout geese, is the attraction, although the catfish & sweet potato fries I had weren't that bad. Margaret had herself a chicken teriyaki salad that drew her approval. The menu is varied, with offerings including fajita wraps, grilled tilapia, fish po'boys, chili, fried pickles, and even the not-so-local Oriental chicken salad. Prices ranged, from $8.49 for the fajita wrap to $7.89 for the catfish plate to $7.99 for the chicken teriyaki. The bar offers beer, some wine, margaritas and Ino'z's famous Mex-Tini: a special blend of Cuervo, Gran Marnier and juices, for $8 (limit two per customer).

Wimberley on weekends is a crowded little burb.

Parking on the square is limited, with bikers taking up some of the few spaces, although most merchants, friendly as all get-out, allow you to park and wander.

Saturday was a sort of early-Fall day here. Temperatures eventually reached the upper 80s, but it was pleasant by the time we left in the early-afternoon. There's something about that first breeze of cool air, especially in the Austin area, where we've endured 100-plus degree days some 90 days this year. We're told those days are over, so our jaunts into the lovely Hill Country will come more-often and enjoyed that much more.

Harder news plays elsewhere across the land.

Here, a morning walk along a quiet, little town's sidewalks reminds you that it, too, is part of life to pull-off the interstate highway and listen for and catch the sounds of uneventful tranquility...

- 30 -

The Valley Farm Report

By JUNIOR BONNER
The Paz Files

PRIMERA, Texas - Hog prices went up here the other day. And pig futures held their own against stiff competition from neighboring Mexico, while the price of corn and wheat rallied a bit against Canadian crops. According to the influential commodities market in Chicago, all was well in the farm world except for what recently happened here: the chief of police was nabbed sexting photos of naked "she-males," women with male genitals, to another man.

Joe Rodriguez said he was fooling around, thinking he was sending the photos via his cell phone to his cousin, an unnamed apparent sexual acrobat. The chief told story-hungry reporters that he sent them to local Constable Robert Lopez by mistake. It is the story of the week in this poor, backward community along the scurrilous Mexican border, where few have time for jokes.

At a gas station here, a fajita-faced customer had nothing good to say about the chief.

"Nothing," he went on. "Not a damned thing, other than that he should resign and go get some psychiatric help. What can his mother be thinking now!"

Rodriguez is still on the job today, even as Major League Baseball opens its playoff games. Rumors have it the city commission wants to sit Rodriguez down and read him the Riot Act; that, plus they want to know why in the Hell he was using city equipment to get his Internet jollies. And couldn't he at least have sent them to a woman. That angle is playing long and loud in this part of Macho Country. No one in this town wants a Gay chief of police. Not yet, anyway.

"Is he going for Pendejo of The Year," said the police chief of a neighboring town. "I'd lock his fat ass in my jail without batting an eye. Sexting? Are you kidding me? Since when are she-males popular with Valley men?"

To his credit, Rodriguez has been overly-apologetic, although it should be noted that proof of his telephonic perversion is unmistakable. They have the chief by the balls, in other words. His balls.

Sex in the Valley always has had a sort of dramatic danger associated with it. Adultery is king and it is practiced as if taking grounders at the local ballfield. Men proudly claim doing it, and, lately, women have begun to make the pages of area newspapers in similar escapades. It is said that sexting, the forwarding of erotic photographs via cellphones, is on the rise, especially in Brownsville downriver, where such photos have taken the place of business cards.

Chief Rodriguez, a portly, mustachioed Mexican-American, may simply be atop the initial wave of the trend, at the forefront of the Next Big Thing here. He isn't smiling in photos taken by the press, but he isn't crying, either...

- 30 -

[EDITOR'S NOTE:...Writer Junior Bonner resides in Combes, which is a stone's throw northeast of Primera. Bonner says he thinks he saw Primera Chief Joe Rodriguez fingering his cellphone while parked off the main road leading into town...]

A Most Depressing Town

"It's us, man. We're near the bottom of the pile. Who do we blame? I blame our elected officials and our Rednecks..." - Melvin Ybarra, Resident

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

HARLINGEN, Texas - As he tells it, a high-throated wino approached writer Junior Bonner at a local bar and not only asked for a dollar, but he also asked that somebody drive an obituary he had written over to the offices of the newspaper.

"That's it for me," Bonner said the man said. "May as well call it a life. Ain't crap happenin' around here anyway. Tell them to use the black & white photo attached to the obit. It was taken in 1967 and I'm smilin' in the damned thing."

People die here, of course.

They get old and they get left behind, then discarded, then buried. A write-up in the Valley Morning Star is their last stab at wanting others to see them one last time. It's part of the journey, but, here, in the Land of Unfulfilled Dreams, an obituary is the best they can do for paying homage to a life. The newspaper carries them dutifully.

Bonner is on a story to expose the most depressing town in the Rio Grande Valley, and my vote goes to this one: Harlingen, Texas. If it had no high school football, the town of almost 70,000 love-starved denizens would be just another ugly weed patch on the road from all-dressed-up McAllen to vulgar Brownsville. That's the story here, an entire town waiting on its obituary.

So, what is it about Harlingen that drives residents of its many neighboring towns nuts? Is it the history of brazen racism? Is it the low-rent politics? Is it the annoying Winter Texans who flock here more than anywhere else in the tropical Valley? Is it the lack of "Big City Things," such as primo car washes or reliable dry cleaners or even half-assed minor league baseball?

What is it?

Something's in the air. You can cut it with a gangbanger's knife, is what our writer Ron Mexico says, perhaps too often. He was the victim of a mugging last year, when local thugs stole into a popular gym and made-off with Ron's clothes, leaving him a pink leotard-like outfit that can be seen in one of our sidebars on the left side of this page.

Is Mayor Chris Boswell boring? Does he contribute to the local ennui? Is it City Commissioner Jerry Prepejchal? Is it City Manager Carlos Yerena? Is it the multitude of insipid bloggers who are good at lobbing crap at others, but never step up to help this city move forward? Is it the location? Would Harlingen be better-off in Indiana? What is it? What's the problem?

What makes Harlingen the whipping boy of area mayors and cops? Why Harlingen? It has just as many goof-offs as pretentious Brownsville, doesn't it? You can see them there, sitting forlornly in local bars, toothing free toothpicks and waiting for the free botana of queso & chips. They all look like notorious blogger Juan J. Ortega, looking almost like walking tributes to the tamale, shorn of any ambition, of any idea that they could spring forth and offer the spectacular. It is a town begging to be invaded and brought to its freakin' knees.

Maybe Rio Hondo will go for it...

- 30 -

Monday Night In The City

"The jig was up. And even as they screamed and bitched at each other, the bloggers were already out with the story..." - Jimmy Herrera, bartender

By RON MEXICO
The Paz Files

HARLINGEN, Texas - They were whooping it up all across town. Pro football was in the air, but it was hard booze that electrified the surly crowds. No big revelation there; on any given day, it is beer and hard liquor that fuels this town. It is said that without beer, Harlingen would be The Vatican. It is the Number One cause for trouble in this struggling town of some 70,000 fun-starved souls. It's been years since anyone read about the spectacular. Alcoholics, and guys just driving around as if alcoholics, rule the local social roost.

A year ago, it was newsman Juan Montoya. The Brownsville blogger downrange known for journalism blows to the body spent his 90 days in jail after being busted for reckless driving and doing it under the influence. A bit closer to here, Rio Hondo City Administrator Hipolito Cabrera, no relation to Foster Brooks, is on the hot seat after news surfaced that he'd had a few DWIs on his record, but had left them off his job-seeking resume.

Then came Tyler Patton, the publisher of the under-achieving Valley Morning Star that seems to do its best to not cover the news here. Patton was busted, as well, after leaving a popular bar frequented by other local newshounds, one being the indefatigable Jerry Deal. Patton is on leave from his job, this after being flashed on the pages of his newspaper in the most unflattering way. Well, maybe next to being accused of fondling little girls. But it's a serious hit for Patton and the newspaper. Drinking and driving never mix. You throw a few cocktails down your throat and chase it with a few beers and, well, you start believing you're Parnelli Jones, or Evel Kneivel, a daredevil in the making.

Patton's fate is likely sealed, if Freedom Newsppaer's regional honcho, Olaf Frandsen, has his way. Frandsen is as unforgiving a boss as were Ghengis Khan and John Ehrlichman. Not that it should matter much to the Valley Morning Star. Its value to the community has sunk dramatically. Where once it chased legitimate stories to do with elected officials and their sexual affairs, it now waits on the annual influx of Winter Texans to fatten its subscription base. Cover the Hispanic community as a contributing factor? Ha ha ha. The Star would rather do anything but that.

So, let Tyler Patton sit things out.

Maybe he had a bad day at the office. Maybe he lost still-more advertising. Maybe the boys at the chamber of commerce, where he also does his buisness impulse, told him his enterprise has lost all steam and is no longer seen as a viable member. Maybe the editor told him the newspaper needed to get off its air-conditioned ass and do real journalism. Perhaps the staff marched in and told him to get his shit together. Or maybe he was pissed cause the Cowboys barely beat the Redskins on Monday Night Football.

Any of those things, and thousands of others, drive Valley men to drinking.

It's part of the culture, part of being so dispossessed as a region that booze is the only social salve for the area's forever-agonized masses. "Wanna get a cold one?" long-ago replaced "Get a job, yet?" as the principal question of the community's day...

- 30 -

[Editor's Note:...Writer Ron Mexico admits that he likes a glass of red wine for breakfast, and that he chases it with his beloved pan dulce. "Un marranito," he says, proudly...]

The Perry Killer...

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

AUSTIN, Texas - He is now known as the candidate who humiliated and took down Country Rick Perry. A political loser himself, Rick Santorum, former congressman and U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, has been renewed in his longshot bid for the Republican Party's 2012 presidential nomination. It is a sure dramatic rise for a candidate who was thoroughly whipped following the Ames Caucus in Iowa a month ago.

But at the recent GOP candidates debate in Orlando, Florida, Santorum, a lawyer and the 53-year-old son of an Italian immigrant father and an Irish mother, arrived as if a pit bull ordered to maul Perry, the then-darling of the GOP.

Perry has not been the same since that night.

Santorum likely has no real shot at winning the nomination, but he may get credit as the one who took out the brash and blustery Texan who first sought to secede Texas from the United States and then decided to seek its presidency. In pro hockey, they would call Santorum the enforcer, the guy whose skills are lacking, but who is willing to punch-out the other team's villain. He has so far done an excellent job of beating on Perry.

Santorum charged after the stammering Perry on the issue of immigration and on Perry's ridiculous claim that the federal social security program is a "Ponzi" scheme. In machine-gun fashion, he loudly assailed Perry, who uncharacteristically appeared stunned, more like a chump than a champ.

Gary Bauer, one of the GOP's most influential of the Christian conservative leaders, said this about Santorum recently, "He has been impressive in the debates. Eventually one person will emerge as the alternative to Mitt Romney. I think Santorum could easily become that alternative, and many social conservatives would agree."

Still, Santorum was among the Republican debaters who said nothing when the Florida audience booed a Gay soldier shown asking a question via video from his base in Iraq. Santorum later said he got an inkling the booing was wrong, but was caught up in the moment. Bad news. Regret, however, is not something Republicans wear openly.

Santorum has bigger problems, himself.

He still carries the stigma of having been roundly beaten in his 2006 bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate. In that contest, he lost to Democrat Bob Casey, Jr. 59% to 41% - the largest margin of defeat for a senator since 1980. That's an astonishing whipping that came during the Bush Administration's wild rallying of GOP candidates.

So, who knows how much longer Rick Santorum goes in his effort to become the Republican Party's standard bearer against incumbent President Barack Obama.

But the lad should get all the credit he wants for exposing the flaws in Country Rick Perry...

- 30 -